WHAT is the Prime Minister trying to do?

This is puzzling. I read the Prime Minister’s response to the First Minister’s formal request for powers to hold a referendum in Scotland. Mr Johnson was predictably against allowing people living in Dumfries and Galloway and the rest of Scotland to vote to determine their own future. So far, no puzzle.

His letter finished with a statement that it was time we all worked together to unleash the UK’s potential. This is where the puzzlement comes in, because Mr Johnson felt it necessary to insert a paragraph specifically criticising the work of the Scottish Government in key areas including the health service over the last 10 years.

READ MORE: First Minister to press ahead with plans for indyref2020​

So he was saying that Scotland’s democratically elected government, responsible for a measurably better performing health service than the increasingly privatised one in England and vastly better than those in Wales and Northern Ireland, is in fact not very good.

This paragraph, whether it comes from Mr Johnson or his advisor Mr Cummings, is gratuitous and inaccurate and insults the Scottish Government, all who work in the health service in Scotland and indeed all our citizens. The paragraph was totally unnecessary.

The Prime Minister is very keen to harp on about defending the Union, yet agreed to separate Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK by keeping Northern Ireland in line with EU trade and environmental standards, thus necessitating a border in the Irish Sea.

He now feels the best way to keep Scotland in the Union is to insult Scottish voters who elected a government to serve us in devolved areas such as health and social care.

If you haven’t read the letter I would urge you to do so. If Mr Johnson’s aim is to keep the UK together, then gratuitous and inaccurate criticism of our government, presumably driven by party-political point-scoring, is a very puzzling way to go about it.

Stuart Campbell
Moffat

THE UK Government has said it will proceed with Brexit despite the rejection of its Brexit Bill by all three devolved parliaments.

15.3 million people in England voted Leave. The combined total population of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is 10.6 million. This means that if every single man, woman, child and infant in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland had somehow wangled a vote and had voted Remain, we STILL couldn’t have stopped ourselves being dragged out of the EU against our will.

If the voices of every single person in the three non-English nations would count for nothing on an issue of this enormity, how can anyone possibly make a democratic or moral case for us remaining in the UK?

Paula Kirby
Inverness

LET’S face it: people in Scotland and other marginalised parts of the UK are greatly disadvantaged and disempowered by the current Westminster system. Many were hoodwinked yet again by the politicians who promised the UK would be a better place if Brexit happened. Most of us in Scotland realise that this means south-east England, big business, the media, the right wing, are all strengthened by the course of events. And Scotland’s sovereignty if anything is further diminished.

The safety net of the European laws will disappear. Despite Boris’s rhetoric – and let us also not forget the 2014 vows – he continues to run over Scotland’s views by ignoring and conning a large group of the electorate.

His latest initiative of visiting Scotland more often in an attempt to placate us is derisory. If he was a true bastion of democracy there would be a serious review of the constitution, the voting system and the second chamber. And running parallel to this there would be a more meaningful inclusion of all parties in all of the UK’s decisions. But of course with his massive majority and the disarray of Labour and the Liberals he doesn’t need to do this. A more inclusive democracy is not on the horizon ... unless of course the call for indyref 2020 is honoured and we gain independence. But how is that going to happen?

I truly wish I had the answer to that million-dollar question. The rallies, the marches, the many pro-independence groups, this newspaper all help, but there must be something else. We need something miraculous, something different. A revolutionary new initiative is clearly needed as we continue to knock or heads of a brick wall.

Robin MacLean
Fort Augustus

THE precious Union of four equal partners is exposed for what we all know that it was, is and will always be – a pretence enforced on the three others by England’s Westminster Parliament.

Without a separate English Parliament, devolution granted by Westminster is not the distribution of power to the three other nations, it is the shackle that keeps these three nations forever in subjugation to the pseudo English Parliament.

The union of the parliaments is over. The London government has irrevocably broken any treaties that existed between England and Scotland as equals, therefore the Scottish people must now move forward to join the other free countries in the world as an outward-looking, compassionate, independent nation state.

John Jamieson
South Queensferry

I FIND myself in agreement with Douglas Turner (Letters, January 22). Having been on many marches over the past years, the variety of chants against the Tories, and leaders from Margaret Thatcher to Boris Johnson, have been entertaining and humourous. However, at times recent chants have crossed the line. These have been in front of families with children, and in front of members of the public who need persuaded to our cause. I am not saying we should walk in silence but I am sure within the massed ranks we can be pretty inventive in our vocals. I detest all that this government stands for, but reluctantly accept that their majority puts them out of touch for the foreseeable. There will be a lot of wasted breath on “Tories, Tories, Tories, out, out, out” if we have to keep it going for the length of this Westminster Parliament, which I hope we don’t.

Hector Maclean
Glasgow